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EvidenceNOW: Tools and Resources

The Agency for Healthcare and Quality (AHRQ) offers practical, research-based tools and other resources to help a variety of health care origanizations, provider, and others make care safer in all health care settings. AHRQ's evidence-based tools and resources are used by organizations nationwide to improve the quality, safety, effectiveness, and efficiency of health care. Improving health care quality by increasing the capacity of small primary care practices to implement the best clinical evidence is our aim. These tools and resources can be searched by the key drivers and the change strategies of the EvidenceNOW Key Driver Diagram.

This resource provides an example of how a practice can translate evidence on treatment for hypertension (high blood pressure) into a protocol for the primary care team, highlighting the responsibilities medical assistants can take on.

Standing orders allow patient care to be shared among non-clinician members of the care team. This overview explains how standing orders empower both clinical and non-clinical staff and provides examples of standing orders.

Primary care practice staff can fill out this one-page checklist before a patient visit to highlight essential information about that patient’s ABCS status and flag upcoming care needs in the electronic health record (EHRs).